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confused about 20 amp power cables

I've recently acquired a pre-owned T+A PA 3100 HV integrated and this is my first exposure to a 20 amp power cable. The supplied cable has what I think is a C19 IEC connector (20 A) on the amp end, but the connector on the wall side has parallel hot and neutral blades as opposed to the 20 amp T blades. Is that end really rated at 20A? 

I have a dedicated 110V 20 amp circuit with 20 A receptacles, but is about 10 ft from my equipment. I am currently plugging the amp's supplied cable into an Oyaide OCB-1 SX V2 power conditioner which is plugged into the 20A wall receptical. The wall plug on the Oyaide appears to be a 15A plug and the  4 distributed receptacles are not 20A  and I assume they are rated for 15A. Is this dangerous to have this 15A section between wall and amp?

Would I be better off, or safer to find a 20A extension cable so I could plug the amp directly into the wall?  I've recently started building my own PCs and could make a 10 ft one with C19 on one end and 20A wall plug on the wall side ( ouch for wire cost for 10ft).  I know that its unlikely the amp will ever draw more than 15A. 

Any suggestions would be helpful!

mintakax
mintakax's avatar
mintakax OP
59 posts
 

@blisshifi -- Hi, yes I am that person. Nice to know that you worked with Michael. I will put the PS 3000 on my "down the road list". Next stop for me is a speaker upgrade :).

mintakax's avatar
mintakax OP
59 posts
 

 

Bottom line... why the 20 amp IEC inlet connector? Better contact surface area???

Beats me why it was used.

@jea48 Thanks-- That's kind of what I ended up wondering.

mintakax's avatar
mintakax OP
59 posts
 

@williewonka ​​​​@ditusa --  Thank you for your info.

mintakax's avatar
mintakax OP
59 posts
 

I ended up buying a 10ft, 10AWG cable with a 20A C19 female and 15A male to go right to the wall plug. The 10ft definitely adds some cost.  I could have done a 20A male connector but I thought it might reduce the resale prospects if I ever wanted to sell it. At any rate that could easily be changed.

jea48
4,787 posts
 

Food for thought.

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Dynamic Headroom.

@almarg Said:            

It refers to the ability of an amplifier to deliver a greater amount of power on brief musical peaks than the amount of power it is rated to deliver continuously.

That can be good in the sense that the peak power levels required by a lot of music can be vastly higher than the average levels that are required. Classical symphonic music is one of the most extreme examples of that.

However, high dynamic headroom can also be an indication that the amplifier's power supply and/or its thermal design are "weak," because it indicates that the amplifier cannot sustain its maximum power capability for very long.

Regards,
-- Al

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/dynamic-headroom

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kijanki  Said:            

2x200W amp might take from mains close to 1kW during peaks. The problem is that peak supply current won’t be expected 8A, but rather close to 40A. It is because current is drawn only for very short time (millisecond pulse) at the peak of full wave rectified sinewave. It applies to most of LPS. Power delivered with such short pulses not only creates larger voltage drops in house wiring, but also heat-up amp’s power transformer, that has to be oversized (higher copper losses and higher core losses for eddy currents and hysteresis).

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/329443/current-through-the-smoothing-capacitor-in-bridge-rectifier

 

It's not just the ampere rating size of the AC power fuse used in a power amp that determines the wire size needed for branch circuit wiring and the size of the wire used in a power cord.

The power supply of a power amplifier likes/needs a steady state AC mains voltage.

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